


First Night

by writelove



Series: The Prison Saga [1]
Category: Brooklyn Nine-Nine (TV)
Genre: F/M, and now they have to get used to their lives w/o each other, and they're both miserable, jake and amy just know each other so well, set after 422
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-02
Updated: 2017-07-02
Packaged: 2018-11-22 04:12:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,918
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11372334
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/writelove/pseuds/writelove
Summary: Jake and Amy spend the first of many nights apart.Everything is all wrong.





	First Night

Grey cement walls, patched with occasional dark spots where someone had tried – and evidently failed – to remove a bloodstain, seemed to draw closer to each other, leaving little room for Jake to breathe. The ground below him pushes against his feet, every step feeling like a marathon as he forces himself forward. Guards stand on either side of him, guiding him through the endless hallway that was quiet enough that Jake worries they can hear the stutter of his heart. One of the guards, a stocky man with a gruff beard, pauses by a slightly open window and reaches through the bars to shove it as far open as all of the others. It reminds him of Amy’s compulsive tendencies and some wisecrack about her being as strict as a prison warden floats through his head, but sadness plagues him and he can’t bring himself to say it aloud. The weight of tension in the air leaves little room for humour.   

Mercifully, noise begins to fill the air as cries of other prisoners erupt around him, but Jake is only grateful for a moment. They holler for the head for the fresh cop meat that has entered the cell block, though they are promptly halted by the guards. He knows his face is betraying his fear, but he can’t bring himself to hide it; he has no one to impress. At the precinct, he always tried to mask terror, feeling that if the others knew how scared he really was, it would only scare them more. On some level, he knew his friends would be receptive of any of his emotions, and would always try to help him work through them, but he never was quite able to drop the façade. Now, he supposes, he’ll never have to.

A particularly violent threat finds its way through the chatter, making Jake’s stomach churn just as he arrives at his cell: CELL098, it reads. Funny, he thinks, everything had just been ever so slightly off in the last month; it was only fitting that he’d have to call the nine-eight home for the next fifteen years. 

The day drags on; on numerous occasions, Jake would look over to the clock, feeling like hours had gone by, only to realize that it had been no more than five minutes. Finally, the guard shuts off the lights and calls for silence, quieting the inmates to a low rumble of chatter as opposed to their boisterous yelps. Jake is grateful for the change. It means the day is over and it would be so much easier for time to pass if he was asleep; He considers whether or not he could sleep for the next fifteen years. It seems rather impractical.

Despite his gratitude for the change in pace, he can’t fall asleep. The bed is cold and small. He has to curl his legs underneath himself to fit under the thin blanket provided, but the stiff mattress digs into him on all sides, making it difficult to find comfort. He jams his arm underneath the flimsy pillow to prop himself a little more; at home he sleeps with 3 big, fluffy pillows, 4 if he’s sick. Home, he thinks. For the first time since he'd arrived, he lets his mind wander to all he'd been trying to find distraction from: his home, his Amy.

He clutches onto the memory of their last conversation like it is the only thread of hope getting him through his days; it kind of is. He didn’t want her to wait, he begged her not to, she had a life to live. Amy wanted to get married and have kids; she wanted to make captain and move into a big house. She wouldn’t be able to do that if she spent all her time focused on freeing her incarcerated boyfriend.

_“I’ll fight for you,” She had promised._

_"Amy, you need to forget about me. I can't let you waste 15 years on a guy who's in prison," His voice was firm. He meant every word he said._

_"Jake," She started, eyes watering through the glass that separated them._

_"Amy, I'm serious. If I have to suffer for fifteen years for a crime I didn't commit, I can't let you do the same. You deserve to be happy, find someone you love and have the family we talked about. Please Amy, the only thing that'll make it harder for me in here is knowing you're hurting too," He pleaded._

_Tears still laced her voice but it was firmer than before, firmer than Jake's, "I'm not going to give up on this case. Everyone at the 99, we're all going to do whatever it takes to get you and Rosa back to us. Jake you can't tell me to forget about you or move on, because I won't, we're getting you out," she paused with a chuckle, "And if that fails we'll get you out in five for good behaviour."_

_God he loved her. There they were, sitting in a prison whose walls had never seen sunlight, nor had they felt the warm breeze on a summer's day, but her smile made him believe those walls had gotten one better. Perhaps so had he._

In the dark silence of his cell, where his only preoccupation was his own thoughts, he could picture her, lying in bed with the lights still on. There were probably papers surrounding her, crumpled from having fallen asleep on them after 19 straight hours of research. Hair would be strewn across her face, but some would still be messily tied behind her, though he thought she'd still be beautiful. He'd been with her long enough to know that she'd probably settled down with a glass of red and a banana muffin, but in her haste to tuck under the covers, she'd probably spilled a dribble of wine on their white comforter. He wondered if she'd be able to get that stain out before he got home.

How much would he miss? How many spilled wine glasses, impossible cases and family problems would pass only for him to come home to no evidence of any of them? How many times would Amy change her favourite song or walk through the park or order from the Chinese place down their street? God, fifteen years was such a long time.

He tries again to fall asleep, but he is still unable to silence his mind. All he can do is wonder if he told her enough how much he loved her or how grateful he was to have her in his life, though he doesn’t quite believe he ever could. His mind continues to race, but physical exhaustion finally overcomes his body and sleep falls upon him, but one last thought enters his mind:

14 years, 364 days and 8 hours.

 

Her dinner is bland; it’s the leftover mac and cheese that she had made for Jake the night prior, but it doesn’t taste the same anymore. The noodles are too hot on top and too cold in the middle, the sauce leaves everything clumped together, and the cheese tastes processed. She remembers the smile on Jake’s face when she served it fresh out of the oven, and she feels guilty. How could she complain about sitting in _their_ apartment, with his favourite meal when he was sitting in some cell eating god knows what?

Their kitchen table is littered with contacts, blurry photos of Hawkins and her crew, and endless notes that Amy had jotted down throughout the night. It’s not just the table, though. Her mess has spread everywhere; crumpled papers and flash drives fill each nook and cranny of the apartment, just like thoughts of the case pervade her mind. Her bed gets the worst of it because that’s the place she misses Jake most. She crawls into it with a glass of red wine and a banana nut muffin – the wine dulls the pain, but tastes sour, and the muffin is too dry, but she supposes it is better than the mac and cheese. Even with all the case files surrounding her, her bed is empty. No amount of paperwork would ever replace a person, especially not Jake. She recalls the night prior.

_Her head nuzzled in the side of his neck and her right arm was thrown over the side of his body, pulling him closer. Normally they fought over who got to be the little spoon, but there had been no dispute that night. She couldn’t imagine spending what could be their last few hours fighting. Their last few hours, the phrase shrieked in her head, begging her to believe it was real, but she still couldn’t wrap her mind around it._

_“Amy?” She hears him whisper, “Are you up?”_

_“Yeah Jake, I’m here.” She would always be there._

_“I’m scared,” His voice was even quieter than before._

_“Me too,” She admitted. “But you’re the best cop I know, Jake, and I’m going to find a way to make everyone else in that courtroom believe it too.”_

_A sadistic giggle escaped his lips, “I really hope I’m not the best cop at the precinct because if we’re convicted it’s up to you guys to get us out.”_

_Amy only held him tighter in response. She tried to memorize everything about him: the way his body melded to hers and kept her warm on the coldest of nights, how his arm clutched hers closer to his side, and her face fit perfectly in his neck. Their legs entwined like the most intricate of puzzles and Amy wondered if anything could ever pull them apart. She decided nothing could._

Even facing fifteen years in jail, Jake had turned to humour, she recalls. She hopes he knows he doesn’t have to with her. Suddenly fear rings through her because she doesn’t know if he knows that she can handle all of him. She wants all of him. She wants his worries and anxieties and anger just as much as she wants his humour and antics and warmth. She wants to be just as much a part of his life when it is going to shit, like their current situation, as she wants to be a part of his life when he succeeds, when he is finally free again. God, does he know that? Does he know that she can’t wait to marry him one day? She vows to tell him when she visits, but it won’t be the same. 

Lost in her thoughts, Amy’s wine drips onto the fresh white sheets and she mutters expletives under her breath. She fears the stain will never come out, but at least it missed all of the files surrounding her. Her body begs for sleep, but instead of listening to it she works late in to the night, combing through evidence for anything she might have missed earlier.

She dozes off eventually, but only after sleep deprivation overwhelms her and makes all the words blur as she reads them. The pillow that's clutched in her arms and the loose-leaf papers that lie on her bed try, and fail epically, to replace the body of the man she loves, the one who had lain there as recently as the night prior. God, she had to get him out. Just before falling asleep, she glances over at the clock and does the math:

14 years, 364 days and 8 hours; but she’d get him out before then. She had to.  


End file.
